Samsung ATIV Book 9 Plus Updated With Core i7, 8GB RAM

Now that Windows 8.1 is rolling out, PC OEMs are updating their line of laptops, and Samsung is coming up with an updated ATIV Book 9 Plus laptop which now comes with Intel’s 4th Gen Core i7 processor, and of course, Windows 8.1. Samsung will continue to supply the version powered by a Core i5 CPU so the i7 updates aims the most demanding users who may want the extra horse power for video editing. Serious gaming seems a bit out of the question since the 9+ does not have a discrete GPU, but uses Intel’s integrated 4000HD graphics processor instead.

The theoretical battery life number remains unchanged to 7.5 hours (55.5Wh battery), but we will take a closer look into this when we test that laptop for ourselves.

If you are not familiar with the ATIV Book 9 Plus, it was initially launched in London in June 2013 and is designed to be a powerful ultralight 13.3” at 3.06lbs. The light weight is impressive since the touch-screen is supposed to add some weight to the system. The best part of the laptop is its QHD+ touch display (3200×1800) that is rated with a 350nit brightness.

This version has also gets a maximum of 8GB of memory, which is a big deal for anyone working with big files. Photoshop is probably a popular example of memory-hungry app that everybody knows, but there are certainly others. In theory “unused” system memory is actually used to cache a lot of files, so RAM never goes completely unused a system. In terms of storage, the official specs show a 256GB SSD, and that seems to be the only option at this time.

Samsung is going to take pre-orders right away on Samsung.com and says that users will find this product on the shelves in “early November”. The core i7 version starts at $1799.99 while the current i5 one remains at $1399.99 with 128GB of SSD and 4GB of RAM. For more affordable version, the ATIV Book 9 Lite or the Ativ Book 7 may be of interest.